Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1887-12-01


question of driving me out, not of pre-
venting my entrance.
T should like to have you interpret for me
the heroine's state of mind | confess I
have always thought her an arrant
coquette, who withdrew only to make her
pursuit more eager"
The young man looked up with a
| trium ph of delight in his brown eyes az
he saw the last shot had told, and by the
| interlaced fingers and rising to the dis
| cussion in dead earnest. He often won
dered at his own perpetual disposition to
quarrel with Miss Grey, yet he told him.
self that she was never SO charming as
when she was downright angry, and de-
| scended from her transcendental hobby
to fight on foot. Slowly and somewhat
disdainfully she replied to his sally:
eff you choose to put SO fIppant con-
struction upon such subtle and beautl-
full revelation of a woman's heart, you
are of course at liberty to do 81, just as
you would be at liberty to Autograph the
Sistine Madonna, or parody Paradise
Lost but you must excuse your friends
from sharing your enjoyment of the pro-
auctions. For myself do not care to
discuss the subject further, for I will not
hear it handled like a second class hirta
| ton. A mans touch on the strings Of
sentiment is always heavy and makes
one cringe like a child's crash on the
| piano."
ION the contrary, the hand of little
employment hath the dantier sense and
q woman's on the keys is too profession
al: but proceed, priestess, with the sacred
rites of intrepr citation, and I will bow to
the east like dervish till the service is
ended"
s'To tell the truth, somewhat more
reverential attitude of mind toward things
| intellectual as well as moral, would do
you no harm. Perhaps that was just the
lack which the heroine felt In her lover"
'Not she! She saw that he was growing
thin, and she did not advise followed
cheek nor faded eye, and altogether did
not like the prospect of nursing him
through long siege of consumption; SO
she preferred to go into a decline her
SELF
Clip pant again and too literal. His
/ pal!or was the result of his emotion
'slcklied DER with the pale cast of
thought;' but seriously, think this was
one of those cases of subtle mind read
ing which TennysOn SO often dashed QUO
before he was overtaken with his passion
for the peerage and footlights. He makes
the girls forsee that incom patibility Of
mind and temperament which, generally
discovered after marriage, makes grlst
for the divorce mills; and though she
feels the magnetic power of her lover and
is drawn to him by force stronger than
her own will, she appeals to him to save
her from herself, not to allow her to act
from this mistaken though inevitable I'M
pulse against the Judgment of her saner
hours. She says to him in substances:
81 love you, but you are not my ideal.
Our aims and purposes, our whole theor-
les of life are at odds, and though we do
not feel his clashing now, Or feel it only
as the stimulus to keener thoughts, we
should feel it more and more when we
were Joined together in the unyielding
bonds of matrimony. Oxen that want
to browse in different corners of the mea-
dow feel the fret of the yoke"
Hilda Grey paused to take breath, and
j bringing back her gaze from the vague
| stretch of ocean, let it fall on her com
panion. Startled at something she saw
rising In his eyes she suddenly realized
with a sense of dismay that she had
drifted out from the safe footing of
abstract ideas, and that the undertow
was carrying her depth into sea which
she dreaded for herself, and had still less
mind to be followed into by her comrade
But il was too late. Before she could
open her lips he had plunged in: "May
[ tell you that life was question not of
browsing, but of blowing, and that in
spite of the fretting of the yoke, the oxen
could do better work together than alone;
that he would be accommodating enough
to browse in her corner in off hours; that
she was his ideal if he was not hers, and
| hat (na tbo 30
vanity )-perhaps her ideals were drawn
from poetry, fiction and transcendental
| philosophy rather than from real life and
| that he might do as well as another for
lay figure to be dressed up into hero oy
her imagination; that thought had hith
erto wasted his valuable talents by keep
| ing them hidden in a napkin
Interruption: "That is waste, where
a dolly would cover them"
| 81 scorn to notice the impertinence.
AS | was saying, he would plead that
though he had idled away his opportunities
| he was not like Portia, SO old but he
might learn if he had some motive of
ambition to lay hold upon, clear and
practical, not vague and illusory. In
short, suppose that |, the average man,
should ask you, the ideel woman, to marry
me, what would you say?"
The amused twinkle this time lay In
the girls eye, though she kept them
demure'y lowered as she answered, II
never reply to hypothetical offers"
| swell, then. for heavens sake, answer
direct one! You have virtually refused
me dozen times in the last fortnight
b; choking me off when you saw / wanted
| to speak. You have taken pans to men
ton IS your ideals the men you thought
most unlike me. You have dosed me
with Concord and surfeited me with Bos-
ton. Now, to crown all, you try to per-
suade me that it is dishonorable in me
to try TO make you care for me. Yet
hear me you shall. / love you, and I ask
| you now, once for all, will you marry
me?"
| No more. dear love for at touch WELD.
| Ask me no morel
In some parts of Australia tie Scotch
| thistle. which has been hitherto reOarded